the problem with once taking the cover off the HDD is 1 you let dust get in to the HDD its self you can put it back together and have it working again ONLY if you make sure there is no dust or anything in the HDD and you have to torque the screws down to the exact spec for your certain HDD yes the screws that hold down the HDD top plate are torqued to an exact amount

the problem with once taking the cover off the HDD is 1 you let dust get in to the HDD its self you can put it back together and have it working again ONLY if you make sure there is no dust or anything in the HDD and you have to torque the screws down to the exact spec for your certain HDD yes the screws that hold down the HDD top plate are torqued to an exact amount

But by following this video if you do it right you can take the cover off and on if done right it will still work

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He already posted the below comment, indicating the drive had a fatal head crash and probably lots of black dust already spinning around in the drive. Opening it, or dropping in the garbage disposal would yeild the same result.

Out of frustration I took the lid off of it and I reckon its kaputt! There is a circular score mark in the middle of the top platter where the head appears to have been rubbing on the same spot for some time. I guess my data is lost

Yes i know it dead but just stating that if you have the proper tools your self taking the cover off the HDD will not always instantly make the drive not work

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I don't disagree with that. After any dust has settled on the platters or head, it probably wouldn't last very long. I have a few older hard drives that I'll probably never use, it's tempting to see how long one really would last

sad part is I am betting it was just the drive controller but now that hes gone a listened to the n00bs on this board its pretty much toast and people wonder why I tell other members to shut the frack up

sad part is I am betting it was just the drive controller but now that hes gone a listened to the n00bs on this board its pretty much toast and people wonder why I tell other members to shut the frack up

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Even if he hadn't opened it up, the outcome would be the same. Lost bits... no more bytes.

It's been awhile since I've looked into HDDs. Do any still use landing zones for the heads (as opposed to full head retraction)? If so, the worn area could have been a landing zone and it was just the controller board that went bad. Cracking the lid open is always last on the list of things to try.

It's been awhile since I've looked into HDDs. Do any still use landing zones for the heads (as opposed to full head retraction)? If so, the worn area could have been a landing zone and it was just the controller board that went bad. Cracking the lid open is always last on the list of things to try.

Mute point now, however.

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Moot, I think you meant. And yes, if it's already self-destructed, spinning little bits of metal throughout the HDD, then any data recovery will be tough (perhaps not impossible though).

I was curious about landing zone, so looked it up...

From Wiki:

Landing zonesA landing zone is an area of the platter usually near its inner diameter (ID), where no data is stored. This area is called the Contact Start/Stop (CSS) zone. Disks are designed such that either a spring or, more recently, rotational inertia in the platters is used to park the heads in the case of unexpected power loss. In this case, the spindle motor temporarily acts as a generator, providing power to the actuator.

Spring tension from the head mounting constantly pushes the heads towards the platter. While the disk is spinning, the heads are supported by an air bearing and experience no physical contact or wear. In CSS drives the sliders carrying the head sensors (often also just called heads) are designed to survive a number of landings and takeoffs from the media surface, though wear and tear on these microscopic components eventually takes its toll. Most manufacturers design the sliders to survive 50,000 contact cycles before the chance of damage on startup rises above 50%. However, the decay rate is not linear: when a disk is younger and has had fewer start-stop cycles, it has a better chance of surviving the next startup than an older, higher-mileage disk (as the head literally drags along the disk's surface until the air bearing is established). For example, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 series of desktop hard disks are rated to 50,000 start-stop cycles, in other words no failures attributed to the head-platter interface were seen before at least 50,000 start-stop cycles during testing.[101]

Around 1995 IBM pioneered a technology where a landing zone on the disk is made by a precision laser process (Laser Zone Texture = LZT) producing an array of smooth nanometer-scale "bumps" in a landing zone,[102] thus vastly improving stiction and wear performance. This technology is still largely in use today, predominantly in desktop and enterprise (3.5 inch) drives. In general, CSS technology can be prone to increased stiction (the tendency for the heads to stick to the platter surface), e.g. as a consequence of increased humidity. Excessive stiction can cause physical damage to the platter and slider or spindle motor.

This setting specifies the cylinder to which the BIOS should send the heads of the hard disk when the machine is to be turned off. This is where the heads will "land" when they spin down. Modern drives (in fact, virtually every drive made in at least the last five or so years) automatically park the heads in a special area that contains no data when the power is turned off. Therefore this setting is meaningless and is typically ignored.

Most BIOSes set this value to be the largest cylinder number of the logical geometry specified for the disk when you autodetect. So if the drive has 6,136 logical cylinders, the landing zone will be set to 6,135. In any event a modern IDE drive will ignore this setting and autopark by itself.

Yes, you are right. Typing faster than thinking gets me every time.
In this case, however, I had no more to say so "mute" works pretty well too.

Making a little negative pressure "clean box" for playing with HDDs would be a fun little project.
You could probably use a vacuum and some Heppa filters and it might work sufficiently.
Just pondering.

Making a little negative pressure "clean box" for playing with HDDs would be a fun little project.
You could probably use a vacuum and some Heppa filters and it might work sufficiently.
Just pondering.

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I've torn apart many hard drives (I like the magnets!). In some, there has been a small pouch of non-woven filter type materials leading to an opening... so I think they are supposed to breath, and it appears the moving layer of air on the platter acts as a fan. (perhaps for cooling?)

Just made me think of one of Tesla's inventions, a motor that used the same prinicple in reverse.

Edit... what you describe sounds a lot like a sand blasting enclosure, without the sand blasting of course.

Edit... what you describe sounds a lot like a sand blasting enclosure, without the sand blasting of course.

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Yes. Cut a couple of holes and tightly glue some rubber gloves so you can reach in.
You would want to clean any tools that would be used, and pressurize the box before opening the drive, but it should work reasonably well.